Contra-Potemkin, thick-envelope. Por uma teoria da fachada na arquitetura contemporânea

Abstract

The façade, possibly the most important architectural element, was always understood as a surface – a think line that separates interior from exterior, building and city – the domain of the architect from that of the urbanist. With the development in the contemporary architecture of the concept of thick-envelope, these limits are blurred, confusing the idea of public space from that of the private space. This paper investigates, from modernist and contemporary precedents, the definitions of façade, envelope and their resignification as thick-envelope. Resuming the discussion towards façades not as a representational device but as an architectural space in itself, the potential of this architecture in create new affects and political agency to the architecture opens up new fields in the discussion of the discipline.